Cuban ‘Wasp’ spy checks in with Miami probation officer

A Havana web site reports that Wasp Network member checked in with his probation officer in Miami.By Juan O. Tamayojtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

Cuban spy René González reported to a probation officer in downtown Miami on Tuesday after serving 13 years in prison as part of the "Wasp Network" of intelligence agents, according to reports from Havana.

González, the first of the five convicted network members to complete his prison sentence, had not been seen in public since Friday when he walked out of a U.S. prison in northwestern Florida.

The 55-year-old had been expected to avoid South Florida, and its deeply anti-Castro Cuban exile community, for the duration of the three years' probation that he still must serve to complete his sentence.

But the Web site CubaDebate, run by the Cuban government, reported González checked in Tuesday with the federal probation office in Miami as required by the terms of his release.

His Miami lawyer, Philip Horowitz, confirmed Gonzalez has checked in with a federal probation office Tuesday but declined to say where, saying he needed to protect his client's safety.

CubaDebate published photos of the Miami building — but not of the González visit — credited to Aissa García, a Havana journalist sent to Miami to report on the case for Telesur, a TV channel run by Cuba and Venezuela.

Mexico's La Jornada newspaper on Tuesday published an interview with Ricardo Alarcón, president of Cuba's legislative National Assembly of Peoples' Power, confirming Gonzalez has been in South Florida.

"René today is in a secure place in South Florida with his daughters, his brother, his father," Alarcón said. The four relatives arrived from Havana last week and were on hand for his release from the Marianna prison.

Alarcon also seemed to say that Gonzalez remained under U.S. surveillance. "He is being watched," Alarcon said. "To protect him? To attack him? Or to stop him from doing something against terrorists?"

Havana insists the Cuban Five are intelligence agents "anti-terrorist heroes" sent to South Florida only to spy on exiles planning terrorist attacks against the island. Their trial included evidence the network tried to infiltrate the U.S. military's Miami-based Southern Command and reported on warplane landings and takeoffs at U.S. military bases in Tampa and the Florida Keys.

Defense lawyers are still appealing the convictions of all of the "Cuban Five" – González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González, who is not related to the freed spy.

Hernandez is serving two life sentences on charges that information he sent to Havana helped Cuban warplanes shoot down two Miami-based civilian planes in 1996, and kill all four Brothers to the Rescuemembers aboard.

Horowitz recently asked U.S. District Court Judge Joan Lenard, who presided at the trial of the "Cuban Five," to let his client serve his probation in Cuba. Lenard rejected the request but said he could file it again after he was released. Horowitz said Tuesday that he will file it sometime soon.

Some leading Cuban exiles in Miami have said they favor allowing Gonzalez, a Chicago-born dual U.S. and Cuban citizen, to return to Cuba in order to remove a possible irritant in South Florida.

U.S. prosecutors have argued that allowing González to return to Cuba would effectively lift all the restrictions of his probation.

Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was reported to have told Cuban officials that the Obama administration would be willing to let González return to Cuba if Havana frees Alan Gross, a U.S. government subcontractor serving a 15-year prison term in Cuba.

Cuba has hinted it could free Gross only as part of a deal involving all the Cuban Five. The State Department has noted that would not be possible because the five are convicted spies and "not political prisoners."

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